Book Review: "Plainsong" by Kent Haruf

This is one of the books I'd told myself I'd read in the New Year. As I was finishing off Empire of Things I thought I now needed some fiction to read - but something deep, emotional and immersive. I needed something that perhaps I had not really heard much about as well. I guess we can count this on the list of authors I've never heard of then! Plainsong is set in Holt, Colorado and tells the tense, moving and heartbreaking story of a whole bunch of loveable characters. The chapters move swiftly between them, looking at how each of them need to get through a particularly difficult time. It simply takes you away.

Tom Guthrie, a high school history teacher, is introduced as a man grappling with professional and personal challenges. His wife, Ella, has become emotionally withdrawn and eventually leaves the family, moving to Denver for treatment of her depression. This departure leaves Tom to raise their two young sons, Ike and Bobby, on his own. At school, Tom confronts the hostility of a student named Russell Beckman and his overbearing parents, representing the difficulties of maintaining authority and integrity in a complex social environment. I absolutely loved the character of Tom Guthrie, this man really carries two little boys along with him whilst facing these horrific personal challenges. The boys very obviously miss their mother and yet, he cannot do much for them in that department.

Ike and Bobby, Tom’s sons, provide a lens through which Haruf explores themes of childhood innocence and the harsh realities of growing up. The boys deliver newspapers, encountering various townsfolk and gaining glimpses into the adult world’s complexities. Their relationship with their mother, though strained by her absence, is tender and poignant. A visit to see her in Denver is a heartbreaking moment, as the boys confront the emotional distance that has grown between them and the fragility of their family unit. Through Ike and Bobby, Haruf captures the bittersweet nature of childhood, marked by both wonder and the gradual loss of innocence. There's a scene in the book where the boys have already eaten supper and they visit their mother who's made them some food. Both of them eat because they tell her they are still hungry. It's such a small scene, but it's heartbreaking. You do not know whether they are eating because they are hungry or whether (like me whenever I get my mother's cooking) they are eating because they don't know when their mother is going to cook for them again.

Victoria Roubideaux, a seventeen-year-old high school student, becomes one of the novel’s most compelling figures. Pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend, she is thrown out of her home by her mother and finds herself with nowhere to turn. Victoria’s plight underscores the vulnerability of young women in patriarchal and judgmental societies. Victoria’s journey takes a turn when she seeks refuge with Maggie Jones, a kind-hearted teacher at her school. Maggie, recognising the girl’s desperation, approaches the elderly McPheron brothers, Harold and Raymond, with a proposal that they take Victoria in. Though initially resistant, the brothers agree, setting the stage for one of the novel’s most heartwarming relationships. Harold and Raymond are two of the best characters in the whole novel. I find that they reflect a sort of grown up version of Bobby and Ike in which all they have is each other and yet, they try to look after others as best they can. There is a very tense part of the book where they lose Victoria for a time, and yet they cannot be upset with her.

All in all, Haruf’s writing style is notable for its simplicity and restraint. He eschews elaborate descriptions and metaphor, instead relying on plain, direct language that mirrors the straightforward lives of his characters. This approach lends the novel an authenticity and intimacy that draw readers into the world of Holt. I just found myself completely and utterly immersed in his themes of grief, loneliness and isolation. This want for dislocation but the tension regarding anything that is out-there or different. The contradictions of being are fascinating and fantastically worked into the narrative. If I can recommend you a book to read this year, this will probably be somewhere far up towards the top of that list.

Oh and if you're asking, yes there's three in the series. Get ready...